


Love is a thing that Grows in the Lungs

by SolarisRasa



Series: Sol's Malec Whumptober 2020 [11]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Drowning, Immortals, M/M, Nightmares, Old Guard (movie) AU!, Past Character Death, Whumptober 2020, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarisRasa/pseuds/SolarisRasa
Summary: No 13. BREATHE IN BREATHE OUTDelayed Drowning | Chemical Pneumonia | Oxygen MaskOld Guard AU part 1Clary, newly immortal, wakes from a nightmare and Magnus must face his failure, again
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Sol's Malec Whumptober 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953454
Comments: 9
Kudos: 96





	Love is a thing that Grows in the Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Old Guard and have been wanting to write an AU. This may not be the actual direct start for that but I am going on the assumption for now. It will be a while before there is any more. I am trying to finish a WIP before starting a new one :)

Clary is with them for three days before she wakes crying. Magnus suspects, he knows that Raphael suffered the dream until he suffered nothing anymore but Raphael never talked about it. Clary is not Raphael, she is open in a way he never was.

She is talking before Magnus can brace himself, Jace and Izzy are pale and Simon just looks gentle and sad. Simon only met Alexander once, after all, just enough not to dream of him not enough to love him.

“He’s in the dark. It’s so terribly dark.” Clary stutters out, gripping her own thighs hard and blinking, “He tries but he can’t hold his breath long enough to feel a way out, he doesn’t think there is one. He’s...Angel...he’s drowning. He keeps drowning.”

Clary rocks herself and Jace, who Magnus can already see is going to love her, goes to her, wraps an arm around her. He looks at Magnus, his mismatched eyes are apologetic. Magnus doesn’t know if it’s because they have to explain to Clary this awful grief, this guilt, or if it’s because Jace can see the trajectory of his own feelings. Soon Magnus will be the lone man out, Izzy and Simon, Clary and Jace. It won’t make the weight easier to bear.

“What-Why do I dream that? It’s like when I was dreaming of you.” Clary looks at Jace, searching his face for answers and Magnus digs his nails into his palm. He is both relieved, that Clary dreams means Alexander is still out there, and horrified, Alexander is still suffering.

“You dreamed until you met us.” Clary nods and Jace sighs, “You’re dreaming about Alec. He’s…”

“My brother.” Izzy says.

“Your brother?” Clary looks a little lost and Izzy elaborates, “Technically he’s my many times great uncle, but he always said I was practically the reincarnation of his younger sister and he’s like a brother to me. He’s one of us.”

“Is he really…?” Clary trails off but Magnus understands. He can’t make himself answer and Simon picks the thread back up.

“Yes. Before any of us, Magnus found Alec.” Clary turns to him but Magnus can’t look at her, he’s lost in the memories of Alexander and his bright eyes.

Alexander with his bow, fierce on the battlefield and tender in their bed. A hellion and a strategist who kept Magnus grounded in times of war and laughing in times of peace. 

Alexander who had drank wine from Magnus’ lips in places that time had forgotten. Alexander who knew the weight of the years and the collapsing hope, who never wavered and who reminded Magnus of the beauty in life. Alexander who encouraged the spark inside of Magnus. Alexander who he had left to torture for centuries. 

“Magnus had lost his other companions, Catarina and Ragnor, and was alone for a long time before the dreams led him to Alec. Together they started the work, they fought battles for what was right. Alec stood at Magnus’ back across hundreds of fights, with weapons and with words. They were unstoppable.”

Clary’s eyes are wide when Magnus chances a look at her, the ghost of Alexander’s smile is waiting behind every blink and he wonders if she can see it.

“Alec rounded us out. He, well, he finished us. He helped me when it started and then Izzy when she came. He was my best friend, closer than any other,” Jace takes Clary’s hand, “He watched our backs and kept us out of trouble.”

“What happened?” Clary whispers, still looking at Magnus. Finally he finds the will to speak, his voice cracking open, the flare that Clary is getting used to scraping away to the very heart of him.

“I failed him. We were caught together, just after we found Simon. They tried to kill us both because they thought we could use magic and because they couldn’t understand the love between us. We didn’t die and we kept not dying as they tried. We knew the others would make their way to us, would free us eventually, or we would finally die. It was misery, but it was also a gift to be together, until it wasn’t. We tried to escape but I was caught. They were going to lock me into an iron cage and drop me in the sea, but Alexander came back for me. He was...he was gifted in persuasion and took my place. He could not free me, but he could save me from the torment.” Magnus can’t continue and Clary has fresh tears streaking down her cheeks.

“We found Magnus eventually. They were still trying to kill him and rumors had spread far enough for us to follow them to the source. We never found where they dropped Alec. We’ve been looking, but we weren’t even sure he was still alive, after we lost Raphael, and so quickly, it was easier, better maybe, to move forward. It’s been nearly four centuries.” Simon is the only one who could ever put voice to it, the only one of them without an Alec shaped hole in his life.

Magnus shudders under the weight of his failures, first Ragnor’s blood pouring over his hands, then Catarina’s quiet smile as her heart stopped, Alexander’s loving eyes as they tore Magnus away from him, Raphael coughing up blood that never stopped. 

He meets Clary’s eyes and the sorrow in them is but a drop in the ocean of his own. He wonders how long it will be until he is trying to hold the life in her too. In any of them.

“He feels…” she shakes her head but Magnus knows.

“Insane?”

Clary nods and Magnus can’t be in this room any longer.

-

Six month and more than a thousand kilometers away Alexander Lightwood finally sets foot on land again. In five hundred years the world has gotten much, much louder and Alec had the sneaking suspicion that with all that noise comes a lot of darkness. He knows that he is not as light as he once was, the crush of the sea in his lungs has seen to that.

He only hopes he’ll be able to find Magnus, his guiding light. He hopes that Magnus is still out there and at the same time he dreads it.

After all, if Magnus has lived this whole time, why did he abandon Alec?


End file.
